


Advice for the Lovelorn

by catlinyemaker



Series: Lady Luck Smile on Me [1]
Category: Star Wars: The Old Republic
Genre: Female Smuggler, Gen, Neysha Rom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-28
Updated: 2012-03-28
Packaged: 2017-11-02 15:51:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catlinyemaker/pseuds/catlinyemaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Corso learns some new tricks from an old dog.  (mild spoilers for the Smuggler storyline.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advice for the Lovelorn

Corso would’ve tried anything else if he could have thought of anything else. What he was doing now wasn’t working, that was for sure, and he was all out of ideas on his own. He paced back and forth in front of the holocom, two, three times.

_‘Make the call before somebody comes back!’_ he told himself. Somebody being the captain, mostly. She was off the ship with Risha, bargaining for a cargo of some sort of toxic critter you could only find on Balmorra. Delicacy among the Hutts, go figure. They’d be back any time now.

Bracing himself, he dialed the number.

“Corso! This is a surprise.” The smug older man in the holobeam craned his neck, looking around the lounge. “Where’s your charming captain?” That was Darmas Pollaran all over, always with an eye out for the ladies - when he wasn’t cleaning someone out at the sabaac table, or fawning over that Coruscanti Senator he’d taken up with.

“Away.” Corso frowned. “Look, this was a bad idea, sorry to bug you…”

“Wait,” Darmas said, focusing on the merc for once. “What did you call about, anyway? With Captain Neysha off the ship, I assume…”

“I…” There was a long pause. Corso looked everywhere but at the holobeam, apparently seeking inspiration in the decking. Darmas didn’t start drumming his fingers but it was a near thing. Corso balled his fists. “I need some advice. From you.”

“Reeally…” One eyebrow crooked up as Darmas studied the young man. “You have piqued my curiosity. What about?”

Corso heard the ship’s airlock beep and start to cycle; somebody (likely the captain) was on her way back in. “Look, I need to talk to you. In private. And I gotta go, now.”

“Okay, I can do that. That little cantina in Bugtown. I can be there tomorrow, late. Think you can make that?”

“Yeah. Latergottago.” The beam winked out just as Neysha rounded the corner with Risha in tow, their arms full of packages. Corso leaned on the holocom and tried to look casual.

“Corso? Did I miss a call?” she asked. 

Corso shook his head. ”Nah, just a friend from the old days. He wants to meet me tomorrow night; you need me?”

“Nope, you go ahead.” Neysha shook her pretty head, making her brunette ponytail swing. “Risha, let’s get this shipment in carbonite before they spoil. Or crawl away.” Risha looked at him curiously but didn’t say anything. 

The two women left the lounge headed for the cargo bay and he watched them go. He could watch her all day, he really could. And usually did; he was almost always at her side. Or running a little behind her - now that was an excellent view. Thank god for rigid armor.

#

Late clearly meant something different to Darmas than it did to him, Corso reflected moodily. He didn’t _like_ Balmorra. Bugtown was just creepy, all of those colicoid bug-things swarming right outside the barricades. And seeing all that good farmland wrecked, craters in the fields and poison in the wells? It made him sick to his stomach. People here just couldn’t catch a break with the war going on year after year. He’d wanted to leave as soon as they landed, but his captain was bound and determined to stay until she’d gotten what they were after: “Biiig payday!” she’d crowed, telling him about it when they’d arrived.

At least the whiskey in the cantina was decent, if expensive. Black market, no doubt. Probably off his own ship, come to think of it. He raised a hand and ordered another round. He had plenty of credits, running with the captain. She might be a little too hardcore on getting every credit out of a job but she didn’t stint herself or the crew; it all went out as fast as it came in.

Neysha was a softer touch than he was, just in different ways. Any hard luck story would get her wallet open. And kids, especially kids on the run? Heck, she’d empty that wallet for them.

“Corso!” There he was, finally, scanning the little cantina from the doorway. Corso waved him over to his table in the corner. The man had come alone, no arm candy tonight. Good. This was going to be hard enough as it was without one of Darmas’ women kibitzing.

He stopped at the bar on the way over and flirted with the bartender while getting his drink. The bartender poured him a double and handed it over with a grin and a wink. Jeeze, the guy flirted like other guys breathed. Well, that’s why Corso had called him, after all.

Darmas came over to the table and pulled out a chair, far enough from the table to lean back and prop his feet on its edge. Looking entirely relaxed, he took a sip of his drink and surveyed the cantina.

“All the little soldier boys have had their fun and toddled off to bed. They have to be up bright and early tomorrow. We can have a nice quiet chat with no listening ears; just what you wanted, right?”

Corso had to grudgingly agree; the place had been a lot busier when he’d arrived, full of young Republican troopers bragging about how now that they were there Balmorra would know peace. The Balmorrans just rolled their eyes and took the troopers’ credits. Now it was down to one or two tables of folks like them, quietly drinking with their heads together. Okay, maybe Darmas was right, coming in after midnight. Wish he had thought of that.

“So, kid, what’s so important I had to leave the Senator and come down to Balmorra?”

Corso sighed and fiddled with his glass. “Like I said, I need advice. You… Well, you know women.”

“Indeed I do,” Darmas said, grinning as he suddenly got a glimmer of what this was about. “I know some women very well indeed. Were you thinking about one in particular? Your captain, perhaps?”

“She’s not _my_ captain, well she is but she’s not. That’s… sorta the problem, I guess.” Corso said, still intent on his glass. He looked up sharply. “Not yours either,” he said with a hint of a growl.

“Whoa, whoa. Down, boy.” Darmas held his hands up. “Neysha’s not anyone’s captain; she’s her own person. Women troubles, eh Corso?”

“Yeah.” Corso was back to talking to his whiskey. “I asked her if I could court her. She didn’t say no... She said she’d rather I asked forgiveness than permission, and I said I didn’t want to ever do anything that needed her forgiveness... Hey! Stop laughing! This is serious!”

It took a while. Every time Darmas looked at Corso’s earnest, baffled face it set him off again. Luckily he got himself under control before Corso got really angry.

“Alright,” he said, wiping his eyes. “So you left it at that, right? Let me guess, she kind of flinched when you said that about forgiveness, didn’t she?”

Corso frowned, thinking back. “I guess she did, a little. She took a step back, anyway. And she told me I was sweet.”

“And since then you’ve been doing what you’d do with the girls back home, right? Treat her like a princess; make sure she’s got everything she needs, flowers, mints on the pillow, that sort of thing?”

Corso brightened a bit. “Yeah… I gave her a couple of really nice guns. She still carries one of them.”

Darmas raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Guns. Really? Hmm.”

He brought his feet down from the table and leaned forward. “Okay, Corso, you’ve asked for my advice so you’re going to get it, but I don’t know if you’re going to be able to take it. Let me tell you a couple of home truths about your lady.” 

“You don’t really know her.” Corso objected.

“Oh, I know her better than you do, I think. And what I don’t know I can guess from how she reacts to things. Now listen.” Darmas started ticking points off on his fingers. “One. She’s not like the girls back home. I suspect that she used to be; in fact I think she probably came from a small town a lot like yours. But something happened, and she ran away. I don’t know that for sure, but it seems likely. You could ask her yourself sometime if you think you can get her drunk enough to talk about it.”

Corso thought about it; that made sense, especially with how she was around runaways and strays. He’d never be able to get her drunk enough to open up, though. She could drink rings around him; he suspected she cheated somehow, but by the time he thought she was doing it he was too drunk to see how. He frowned. “So if she used to be like the girls back home, why doesn’t she like the same things?”

“Because that was a long time ago, and a long way away, and it probably reminds her of whatever she ran from. You, my earnest young friend, have to woo the woman she is now, not the girl she was. Which brings us to two. You’re ahead of the game; she likes you and she trusts you and she’d be happy to sleep with you if that’s what you wanted.”

That brought another frown to Corso’s face. “How do you know all that?”

“Well, for one thing, when she’s got a meeting with me she brings the wookie. You’ve made no secret that you don’t like her flirting, and a little jealousy isn’t bad, but when she thinks she might want to have some fun she sends you away. She’s trying to spare your feelings, Corso. Which means she likes you. She’s not going to stop fooling around, though. If you asked her, she’d say something like…” He paused and then went on in a soft drawl unlike the captain’s.

“We gotta take our fun where and when we find it, boy. You an’ me, with what we do? We could be a big glowing ball of plasma tomorrow, and where would you and your lonely pecker be then?” Darmas leaned back and closed his eyes.

He sat silent for just a second, then opened his eyes before continuing in his normal voice. “She trusts you, because when things go pear-shaped, she wants you with her. Just last week on the pirate station; she showed up with the wookie, but leaving through all those Imp thugs? I know for a fact you got called up and she left with you.”

Darmas continued with a sly grin: “And she wants you, boy, because if a woman I was interested in made that remark about wanting me to ask forgiveness? I’d have her off her feet and into a bed in less time than it takes to tell. And I wouldn’t be expecting to need to ask forgiveness in the morning, either. That, Corso, was an invitation. And that’s why you got the flinch when you dropped the ball.”

“So if I’m not supposed to treat her like a princess, what am I supposed to do?” Corso asked slowly, brow furrowed. “I thought all the girls wanted to be protected. I thought they liked it.”

“Some girls might. Your lady though, she had to learn early on to take care of herself. And she’s proud of it. So when you try to protect her, you’re saying you don’t think she can do it herself. If you treat her like a china doll in private, how do you treat her when you’re out on a mission?”

“Oh, well then she’s my boss. We work together. She’s the best shot I’ve ever seen and I’m the one pulling critters off her so she can make those shots.”

“And how does that work out?” Darmas asked.

“It’s great! In the mad and the bad and the crazy, she’s always got my back and I’ve got hers. We’re a team; she’s saved my bacon a hundred times and I’ve done the same for her.” Corso’s face went dreamy in the telling. “…sometimes she laughs and her whole face just lights right up.”

“Yeah, you’ve got it bad alright.” Darmas grinned. “Try treating her more like your partner and less like that mythical princess, and see how that works out for you, my friend.”

The conversation went more general then. Balmorra, and the bugs, and where the Imps were stationed and what the black market was like. Corso stood a round, then Darmas did, and it was pretty late and they were both pretty toasted when he leaned over to say one more thing.

“Listen, Corso. One last thing about your lady. Whatever you do, if it goes good, don’t propose to her. No matter how much you want to.”

Corso was puzzled: “Why not? Isn’t that the right thing to do?”

“Not for her. Look, I know her because I used to be her. If the two of you catch a few breaks and you play your cards right, years from now you could be standing at her shoulder while she plays sabaac, watching her flirt and fleece everyone in sight. And you’ll just grin because you’ll know she’s coming home with you, in the end.”

Darmas took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh: “You have to hold her lightly, my friend. If you do, when she sees you she’ll remember all the best things about home, wherever that was, and she’ll stay with you as long as she can. If you try to tie her down, then that’ll just make her remember what she ran from, and she’ll run again. And you’ll never catch her, not ever. So don’t do it, Corso. Just don’t.” He fell silent and stared into space for a good ten seconds before shaking himself all over like a wet dog and grinning ruefully at the young merc. “Too much brandy, makes me slow sometimes.”

#

After Corso left with a muttered “Thanks, Darmas,” it was Darmas’ turn to stare into his drink. Since when had he become the wise old uncle, dispensing advice to the lovelorn? He warmed the brandy in his cupped hands and breathed in the heady fumes.

He’d lied to the boy; oh, not about anything that mattered. He just wished he’d had someone to go to, that summer so many years ago. It still seemed like yesterday; Darmas the wide-eyed farm boy, fascinated and befuddled and head over heels in love with his wild brown-eyed girl. But he’d made the mistake he’d warned Corso against and tried to tie her to him forever, and she’d run so fast he barely felt the wind of her passing. And he’d never found her again, not ever.

But that was a long time ago and a long way away, and the shift was changing in the cantina, here and now. He rubbed a hand over his face, maybe clearing up some moisture around the eyes but that was probably just the light, or the smoke; it was smoky in this little place after all.

Darmas made sure his winsome smile was firmly back in place before walking over to the bar. Maybe that cute bartender wouldn’t mind taking her fun where and when she found it tonight.


End file.
